San Francisco, CA - Rackspace Managed Hosting, the San Antonio-based company that manages two Indymedia servers seized by the US government last Thursday, said yesterday that the servers have been returned and are now available to go back online. Immediate access to the servers, which host Indymedia's Internet radio station...

EFF has been studying various methods for content control (censorship, spam blocking, detecting copyright infringement, etc.). There are two main challenges: identifying content reliably, and avoiding collateral damage. Randal Schwartz of Perl fame shows off a nifty trick you can do with everyone's favorite operating system (OS), OpenBSD...

Seizure of Servers Hosting Indymedia Websites Violates the First Amendment San Francisco, CA -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is representing a coalition of independent Internet journalists whose websites were shut down on Thursday, October 7, when their servers were seized by the FBI. The two servers, which were located...

Washington, DC - Today, the Supreme Court denied a request by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to hear its appeal of a lower court decision that Internet service providers (ISPs) do not have to hand over the names of people suspected of copyright infringement. The case grows...

This just in: the Supreme Court has denied cert in RIAA v. Verizon, the case in which the recording industry initially won the right to unmask an anonymous KaZaA user with a special non-judicial, PATRIOT Act-like subpoena under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DC Circuit...

United Kingdom - Acting under a court order, Texas-based web hosting company Rackspace Managed Hosting handed over two UK-based servers containing Indymedia websites to government agents yesterday morning. Indymedia is a collective of online journalists who maintain a network of independent news websites. The order was apparently issued by a...

Washington, DC - A group of 25 entertainment companies filed a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court today, asking the Court to rewrite copyright law principles that establish when high-tech companies can be held liable for the copyright infringements of their customers. The petition asks the Supreme Court...

That's what the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) promises if the FBI gets its way.
The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) was passed in 1994 to make it easier for the feds to listen in to everyone's phone calls. The law forced phone companies to design their digital...

EFF is a proud co-sponsor of "Resisting Government Secrecy in a Time of Terrorism," a two-day conference taking place this Friday, Oct. 8th, and Saturday, Oct. 9th, at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The conference, presented by the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC), features a...

Boston, MA - The First Circuit Court of Appeals decided today to rehear argument in a case that could have a profound effect on email privacy. Last month, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, US v. Councilman, urging such a rehearing. In...

Lawsuit Questions FCC's Authority to Mandate Copy Protection on All Hardware That Receives Digital TV Signals Washington, DC - When the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) broadcast flag mandate goes into effect next year, it will be unlawful to sell devices that can tune in digital television without imposing copy protection...

Last week brought an extraordinary victory for privacy and civil liberties: a federal district court struck down a key power under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the USA PATRIOT Act. Specifically, US District Court Judge Victor Marrero ruled that "National Security Letters" (NSLs) violate the Constitution...

Geneva - The United Nation's (UN) World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has adopted a "development agenda" that acknowledges the need for balance in worldwide policy on trademark, copyright, and patents. In the past, WIPO has been roundly resistant to attempts to balance the interests of copyright holders, who make up...